Scared
by djmichealsfics
Summary: Songfic that made me think of Gabby.


**Disclaimer:** I don't own anyone on NCIS… as much as I would like to. Last I heard, I'm not making any money off this, so don't sue. It isn't nice. The song is 'I'm Scared' by Duffy. Have a listen if you've never heard it.

It seemed like a million years since she had seen the light of day. Day after day it was the same for days, then weeks, then months, and finally a year. Up and gone before dawn home way after dark. The pace shouldn't have been able to have been kept up. It was 18 months later when the storm broke loose and raged.

**_The blank pages of my diary  
That I haven't touched since you left me  
The closed blinds in my home  
See no light of day_**

She entered her apartment at 2:45am without turning on the lights, dropping her belongings in a trail from the door to the bedroom. First her shoes, then bag, and coat, before falling into her bed exhausted. It was the only way she could sleep. During the night sometime she got up to use the bathroom and bumped into a table and knocked something over but was too tired to mess with it. When she woke up again it was after 8:00, went to the kitchen to start coffee while she showered. On her way to the bathroom, she saw the table and went to right it. She took a good look around her home and noticed the stuffiness, the smell of unused rooms, the dust. She decided that it was time to clean up. There was a book on the floor next to the table, in the dim light she had no problem recognizing what it was. It was a journal he gave her one day for no apparent reason, leather cover and heavy bonded paper. The stolen moments, shared looks across a room, intimate gestures, simple things really. It was all in there and she hadn't touched it since he left.

_**Dust gathers on my stereo  
Cause I can't bear to hear the radio  
The piano sits in a shady space  
With a picture of your face**_

The day after it had happened, the quiet had been noticed immediately by the neighbors in the complex. The normal pulse of music was gone. The utter stillness was cause for concern and a call to the police. She was okay but she just... couldn't. The beat of the music corresponded with the vibrant beat of his heart and he left. She preferred the solitude and stillness to the loud pulse. With it, she expected him to come any time to turn it down and that would never happen again.

**_Coffee stains on your favorite book  
Remind me of you so I can't take a look  
The magazines you left on the floor  
You won't need them any more_**

It was almost her undoing finding her book under the couch. She would lie against him on the couch with his arms around her and they would read together; her forensics magazines and him woodworking magazines or reports. Sometimes she would read to him aloud. His favorite was about a forensic pathologist who solves crimes. He would tease her about the science it and the gore; wondering how anyone could fall asleep to something like that.

**_A towel left hanging on the wall  
No sign of wet footsteps in the hall  
There's no smell of your sweet cologne  
I'm lying here alone_**

Sometimes she would stay at his house and sometimes he would stay at hers and kept toiletries at each others homes instead of toting it back and forth. Sometimes she would just sit in the bathroom on the sink while he showered, drinking in the sounds and smell of him. When he was at her house and he was finished with his shower, he would wrap a towel around his waist and go to the bedroom to get dried off and dressed. It would drive her crazy that he wouldn't do it in the bath and leave a trail of water.

_**I'm scared to face another day  
Cause the fear in me just wont go away  
In an instance, you were gone  
And now I'm scared.**_

She didn't think that she could go on; as long as she kept busy she was fine but when she stopped, she had time to think. Time to think about a bullet that destroyed her life, an insane accident that had no reason. He wouldn't have been there if she hadn't wanted to swing in the park. It was an impulse that would haunt her for the rest of her life. Two kids playing with a gun that belonged to an older brother, gun went off. If he hadn't have been pushing her he wouldn't have died. Now she was is alone and scared.


End file.
